The British Foreign Office and Macedonian National Identity, 1918-1941

by Andrew Rossos, Slavic Review, vol. 53, number 2, Summer 1994

The study of the Macedonian identity has given rise
to far greater controversies and debates than that of most, if not all,
other nationilisms in eastern Europe. This has been only in part due to
the hazy past of the Slavic speaking population of Macedonia and to the
lack of a continuous and separate state tradition, a trait they had in
common with other "small" and "young," or so-called
"non-historic," peoples in the area. Controversy has been due
above all to the fact that, although it began in the second quarter of
the nineteenth century, Macedonian nationalism did not enjoy international
acceptance or legitimacy until the Second World War, much later than was
the case with other similar national movements in eastern Europe.[1]
Recent research has shown that Macedonian nationalism developed, generally
speaking, similarly to that of neighboring Balkan peoples, and, in most
respects, of other "small" and "young" peoples of eastern,
as well as some of western, Europe. But Macedonian nationalism was belated,
grew slowly and, at times, manifested confusing tendencies and orientations
that were, for the most part, consequences of its protracted illegitimate
status.[2] For a half century Macedonian nationalism existed
illegally. It was recognized neither by the theocratic Ottoman state nor
by the two established Orthodox churches in the empire: the Patriarchist
(Greek) and, after its establishment in 1870, the Exarchist (Bulgarian).
Moreover neighboring Balkan nationalists-Bulgarian, Greek, Serbian-who
had already achieved independence with the aid of one or more of the Great
Powers, chose to deny the existence of a separate Macedonian identity;
indeed they claimed Macedonia and the Macedonians as their own. They fought
for Macedonia with propaganda and force, against each other and the nascent
Macedonian nationalists. A prolonged struggle culminated in 1913 with the
forceful partition of Macedonia after the Second Balkan or Inter-Allied
War between Bulgaria, on one side, and allied Greece and Serbia, on the
other.[3] Each of these three states consolidated their
control over their respective parts of Macedonia, and throughout the inter-war
years inaugurated and implemented policies intended to destroy any manifestations
of Macedonian nationalism, patriotism or particularism- Consequently, until
World War II, unlike the other nationalisms in the Balkans or in eastern
Europe more generally, Macedonian nationalism developed with-out the aid
of legal political, church, educational or cultural institutions. Macedonian
movements not only lacked any legal infrastructure, they also were without
the international sympathy, cultural aid and, most importantly, benefits
of open and direct diplomatic and military support accorded other Balkan
nationalisms.[4] Indeed, for an entire century Macedonian
nationalism, illegal at home and illegitimate internationally, waged a
precarious struggle for survival against overwhelming odds: in appearance
against the Turks and the Ottoman Empire before 1913 but in actual fact,
both before and after that date, against the three expansionist Balkan
states and their respective patrons among the Great Powers.[5]
The denial of a Macedonian identity by the neighboring
Balkan states, and their irreconcilably contradictory claims, motives,
justifications and rationalizations, are mirrored by the largely polemical
and tendentious Bulgarian, Greek and Serbian literature on the Macedonian
question.[6] But the attitudes of the individual Great
Powers and the thinking, motivations and internal discussions of their
foreign policy establishments have not yet been studied. In this article
I will focus oil the British Foreign Office and its attitude toward the
Macedonian question during the inter-war years. The British Foreign Office
provides a case study because Great Britain played a leading role in the
area after the 1878 Treaty of San Stefano; during the inter-war years respect
for national self-determination and for the rights of national minorities
was, at least in theory and in official policy, the accepted and prevailing
norm.
For the Macedonians the inter-war period was conditioned
by the Balkan wars and the partition of their land. The peace conferences
and treaties which ended the Great War, represented for many "small"
and "young" nations of eastern Europe the realization of dreams
of self-determination. But with some minor territorial modifications at
the expense of Bulgaria, these treaties confirmed the partition of Macedonia
agreed upon in the Treaty of Bucharest. For the victorious allies, especially
Great Britain and France, this meant putting the Macedonian problem finally
to rest. It also meant that the allies could satisfy two of their clients
which were pillars of the new order in south-eastern Europe: the Kingdom
of Greece and the former Kingdom of Serbia, now the dominant component
in the newly created Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, Yugoslavia.
Even though their territorial acquisitions in Macedonia did not necessarily
satisfy their max-imal aspirations, official Athens and Belgrade also pretended
that Macedonia and the Macedonian problem had ceased to exist. Belgrade
proclaimed Vardar Macedonia to be Old Serbia and the Macedonians Old Serbians;
for Athens, Aegean Macedonia became simply northern Greece and the Slavic
speaking Macedonians were considered Greeks or, at best, "Slavophone"
Greeks. Although Bulgaria had enjoyed the greatest influence among the
Macedonians, because of its defeat in the Inter-Allied and the Great Wars,
it was accorded the smallest part, Pirin Macedonia, or the Petrich district,
as it became known during the inter-war years. Unlike official Athens and
Belgrade, the ruling elite in Sofia did not consider the settlement permanent;
but without sympathy among the victorious Great Powers and threatened by
revolutionary turmoil at home, they had to accept the settlement for the
time being. In any event, the Macedonian question was not a priority for
the Agrarian government of A. Stamboliski.[7] Greece,
Yugoslavia and Bulgaria all sought to destroy all signs of Macedonianism
through forced deportation, so-called voluntary exchanges of populations
and internal transfers of the Macedonian populations. They also implemented
policies of colonization, social and economic discrimination, and forced
denationalization and assimilation based on total control of the edu-cational
systems and of cultural and intellectual life as a whole.
These policies were particularly pursued with great
determination in Yugoslavia and Greece. Though he approved of these policies,
C. L. Blakeney, British Vice-Consul at Belgrade, wrote in 1930:

It is very well for the outsider to say that the only way the Serb could
achieve this [control of Vardar Macedonia] was by terrorism and the free
and general use of the big stick. This may be true, as a matter of fact
one could say that it is true ...On the other hand, however, it must be
admitted that the Serb had no other choice ... He had not only to deal
with the brigands but also with a population who regarded him as an invader
and unwelcome foreigner and from whom he had and could expect no assistance.[8]

Ten years later, on the eve of Yugoslavia's collapse
during the Second World War, it was obvious that the Serbian policies in
Macedonia had failed. R.I. Campbell, British minister at Belgrade, now
denounced them to Lord Halifax, the Foreign Secretary:

Since the occupation by Serbia in 1913 of the Macedonian districts,
the Government has carried out in this area, with greater or lesser severity,
a policy of suppression and assimilation. In the years following the Great
War land was taken away from the inhabitants and given to Serbian colonists.
Macedonians were compelled to change their names and the Government
did little or nothing to assist the economic development of the country…[9]

Athens was even more extreme than Belgrade: under
the guise of "voluntary" emigration they sought to expel the
entire Macedonian population. Colonel A.C. Corfe, chairman of the League
of Nations Mixed Commission on Greco-Bulgarian Emigration, reported in
1923: "In the course of conversation, Mr. Lambros [Governor General
of Macedonia], actually said that the present was a good opportunity to
get rid of the Bulgars [sic] who remained in this area and who had always
been a source of trouble for Greece." [10] This
could be achieved at least superficially: Athens made a concerted effort
to eradicate any reminders of the centuries old Slav presence in Aegean
Macedonia by replacing Slav Macedonian personal names and surnames, as
well as place names, etc., by Greek. This policy reached its most extreme
and tragic dimensions during the late 1930s under the dictatorship of General
Metaxas when use of the Macedonian language was prohibited even in the
privacy of the home to a people who knew Greek scarcely or not at all,
and who in fact could not communicate properly in any other language but
their own. [11] In 1944 Captain P.H. Evans, an agent
of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) who spent eight months in western
Aegean Macedonia as a British Liaison Officer (BLO) and station commander,
condemned the Greek policies in a lengthy report for the Foreign Office.
He described the attitude "even of educated GREEKS towards the SLAV
minority" as "usually stupid, uninformed and brutal to a degree
that makes one despair of any understanding ever being created between
the two people." However, he also left no doubt that the Greek government's
policies had failed:

It is predominantly a SLAV region not a GREEK one. The language of the
home, and usually also of the fields, the village Street, and the market
is MACEDONIAN, a SLAV language... The place names as given on the map are
GREEK...; but the names which are mostly used - - - are - - - all Slav
names. The GREEK ones are merely a bit of varnish put on by Metaxas...
GREEK is regarded as almost a foreign language and the GREEKS are distrusted
as something alien, even if not, in the full sense of the word, as foreigners.
The obvious fact, almost too obvious to be stated, that the region is SLAV
by nature and not GREEK cannot be overemphasized.[12]

Revisionist Bulgaria, where major trends in Macedonian
nationalism were well entrenched in Pirin Macedonia and among the large
Macedonian emigration to its capital, assumed a more ambiguous position.
Sofia continued its traditional attitude towards all Macedonians, acting
as their patron but claiming them to be Bulgarians. To a certain extent
it left the Macedonians to do what they wanted; unlike Athens and Belgrade,
it tolerated, or felt compelled to tolerate, the free use of the name "Macedonia"
and an active Macedonian political and cultural life.[13]
In its annual report on Bulgaria for 1922, the British Legation at Sofia
referred to the Pirin region as "the autonomous kingdom of Macedonia"
and stressed that "Bulgarian sovereignty over the district - -
- is purely nominal and, such as it is, is resented by the irredentist
Macedonian element no less strongly than is that of the Serb-Croat-Slovene
Government over the adjacent area within their frontier."[14]
Indeed, it could be argued that, after the overthrow of the Stamboliski
regime in June 1921, Sofia not only encouraged Macedonian discontent in
all three countries but also sought to take advantage of it to further
its own revisionist aims.[15] Bulgaria's revisionism
split the ranks of the partitioning powers and was of great significance
for the future of Macedonian nationalism. For no matter how much Greece
and Yugoslavia, and their patrons among the Great Powers, especially Great
Britain, pretended officially that the Macedonian question had been resolved,
Bulgarian policies helped to keep it alive. [16]
More importantly still, the Macedonians, both in the
large emigration in Bulgaria and at home, rejected the partition of their
land and the settlement based upon it. As the British Legation at Sofia
warned: "the Governments of Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, if not that of
Greece, are faced with practically an identical problem in the pacification
and control of a district overlapping both the frontiers inhabited by a
pop-ulation hostile to both Governments for different reasons and determined
on strengthening the hands of the opposition parties in each country."[17]
Disturbing to London were calls for open resistance to foreign rule. Early
in 1922 W.A.F. Erskine, the minister in Sofia, drew Lord Curzon's attention
to an anonymous article in the newspaper Makedonija, purportedly from a
Macedonian professor at the University of Sofia, which exhorted

the Macedonians to follow the example of the Irish, who after a bitter
struggle lasting through centuries, have succeeded in gaining their autonomy.
"Their country is today free. Ours, too, will be free if we remain
faithful to our own traditions of struggle and if we take as our example
the lives of people, who, like the Irish, have "never despaired of
the force of right." [18]

To be sure, organized Macedonian activity in Aegean
and Vardar Macedonia, which had declined after the bloody suppression of
the Ilinden uprising of 1903 and the repeated partitions of 1912-1918,
came to a virtual standstill immediately after World War I. Virtually the
entire Exarchist educated elite, most Macedonian activists from Aegean
Macedonia and large numbers from Vardar Macedonia had been forced to emigrate
and now sought refuge in Bulgaria.[19] Furthermore,
the remaining Macedonian population in Aegean Macedonia, overwhelmingly
rural and lacking an educated elite, found itself after the Greek-Turkish
War (1919-1922) a minority in its own land as a result of the Greek government's
settlement there of large numbers of Greek and other Christian refugees
from Asia Minor.[20] The situation among the Macedonians
in Bulgaria was only slightly more encouraging: while there were large
concentrations of Exarchist educated Macedonians and Macedonian activists
both in the Pirin region and in Sofia, there were deep divisions within
each group. Demoralization had set in and a long process of regrouping
ensued among the Macedonians there.[21]
Nonetheless, opposition to foreign rule existed in all
three parts of Macedonia from its imposition and systematic anti-Macedonian
policies only intensified it. That this discontent was considerable was
clearly evident in the support given to the terrorist activities of the
Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) in the 1920s. A popular
revolutionary movement in the early twentieth century, by the mid-1920s
IMRO had emerged as a terrorist organization. It virtually ruled Pirin
Macedonia and was a state within the state of Bulgaria, pursuing its own
self-saving ends by relying on Bulgarian reaction and Italian fascism,
and allowing itself to be used by both. However, officially and very conspicuously-it
promulgated the aims and the slogans of the older movement: "united
autonomous or independent Macedonia" and "Macedonia for the Macedonians."
IMRO conducted repeated, so-called "Komitaji," armed raids and
incursions into Vardar and, to a lesser extent, into Aegean Macedonia until
the military coup in Sofia of May 1934 when the new regime liquidated the
organization. More than anything else, it succeeded in maintaining the
Macedonian question on the international scene and, as champion of Macedonia
and the Macedonians, it continued to enjoy considerable support throughout
most of the 1920s.[22]
Widespread opposition to foreign rule is also demonstrated
by the results of the first post-war elections held in Greece, Yugoslavia
and Bulgaria, the freest to be held during the inter-war years. Significant
support in all three parts of Macedonia went to the newly formed communist
parties, which also rejected the status quo and declared themselves champions
of Macedonia and the Macedonians.[23] As Erskine reported
from Sofia: "The program of the Communists, therefore, at the instigation
of Moscow, was modified to a form of cooperation with the Macedonian revolutionaries
- - - to stir up trouble generally - - - and to pave the way for a revolution
by creating disorder."[24] Commenting on the election
in Yugoslavia, the British minister at Sofia, R. Peel, stressed that although
Serbian troops had resorted to the worst excesses in order to terrorize
the inhabitants into voting for government lists, "…a large proportion
of communist deputies were returned from Macedonia."[25]
Clearly, the communist vote was, in effect, a Macedonian protest against
foreign rule.[26] This cooperation between communists
and Macedonians, dating from the end of World War I, intensified in the
late 1920s and early 1930s, when the Balkan communist parties, after long
and heated debates, officially recognized Macedonia as a distinct Slav
nation with its own language, history and territory. The Comintern followed
suit in 1934 and thus supplied the first formal international recognition
of Macedonian nationalism.[27] Both rightist and leftist activities-the renewal
of terrorism by IMRO, led by I. Mihailov, and the association of Macedonian
nationalism with international communism-led to a revival of the Macedonian
question as the central issue dividing the Balkan states and hence as the
major cause of instability in southeastern Europe. These activities not
only represented rejections of the territorial and political terms agreed
to at the Paris Peace Conference, but also were serious challenges to Great
Britain, one of the architects of the treaty and its main defender throughout
the inter-war years.
For some time following World War I, London refused
to consider the unrest in Macedonia and, hence, the revival of the Macedonian
question. A lengthy memorandum, "The Macedonian Question and Komitaji
Activity," prepared by the Central Department of the Foreign Office
in 1925, maintained that "While amongst the Slav intellectuals there
is violent partisanship, probably the majority of Slavs - - - do not care
to what nationality they belong."[28] DJ. Footman,
the vice consul at Skopje, echoed a similar sentiment when he wrote, "I
believe that 80 percent of the population merely desire a firm, just and
enlightened Administration, and regard Nationalism as of minor importance."
[29] If there was a problem, the explanation for it
could be found in Bulgaria:
London blamed Sofia not only for tolerating, but for
encouraging and sponsoring an organized Macedonian movement, revolutionary
organizations and armed bands on its own territory.[30]
A more sophisticated explanation for the unrest could be based on a combination
of social, economic and especially administrative causes: reports from
the Balkans pointed to the economic backwardness of Macedonia and to the
exacerbation of its economic woes by the partition, which had destroyed
traditional trade routes and markets. They further stressed the lack of
government reforms and constructive policies to alleviate the prevailing
condition: communications remained as primitive or non-existent as they
had been before the Great War, and towns such as Bitola, Skopje and Ohrid
were in a state of general decline. The peasantry appeared to be slightly
better off, but "this was less the result of agrarian reform or of
the government colonization policy than of the energy and initiative shown
by the peasantry, who have, in many cases, bought land either individually
or in corporations, from Turks or Albanians who have emigrated to Anatolia."[31]
"Such discontent as exists springs from genuine economic distress,"
wrote O.C. Harvey of the Foreign Office after a visit to Yugoslav and Greek
Macedonia in April 1926: "Although the peasants are said to be doing
well, the towns are dying from lack of trade. And wherever else the Serb
is spending his money, he does not seem to be spending it in Macedonia.
Yet this country is perhaps really the biggest problem for the Serbs."
[32] Or, as R.A. Gallop, third secretary in the legation
in Belgrade, put it: "What discontent there is comes from economic
causes and the Government must seek palliatives. This of course will take
time and cost money, but to my mind the key to the Macedonian question
is now this: a prosperous Macedonia will be a contented one." [33]
But most reports to London singled out the administration
as the root cause for discontent in Macedonia. The new rulers had forced
on the Macedonians their own, that is foreign, administrative and legal
codes ''without regard to local conditions or requirements." Their
manner of administration was considered even worse:[34]
it was described as invariably harsh, brutal, arbitrary and totally corrupt.
As Colonel Corfe wrote: "One of the Macedonian's chief grievances
is against the Greek Gendarmerie and during our tour we saw many examples
of the arrogant and unsatisfactory methods of the Gendarmerie, who comandeer
from the peasants whatever food they want…One visits few villages where
some of the inhabitants are not in Greek prisons, without trial…"[35]
DJ. Footman described the Serbian officials in Vardar Macedonia as
poorly qualified, underpaid, arbitrary and corrupt. "Officials depend
for their promotions and appointment on the service they can render their
political party… ," he wrote. "It is therefore only natural for
them to make what they can while they are in office. I regard this as the
factor which will most militate against improvement in administration."[36]
And, after a twelve-day motor tour in the same part of Macedonia, Major
W.H. Oxley, the military attaché at Belgrade, reported:

To start with they [the Prefects] have practically unlimited power over
the local inhabitants and … I gathered that they must exercise a pretty
firm control. Further, we were informed that on the whole they were corrupt
and were liable to use their power either to blackmail their flock or to
accept bribes from over the frontiers, in order to allow terrorists to
pass through their areas…[37]

The Central Department of the Foreign Office admitted
all this and more. Its lengthy review of 1930 of the Macedonian question
stated:

At present Jugoslavia lacks the material out of which to create an efficient
and honest civil service. This want is especially felt in the new and "foreign"
provinces such as Serb-Macedonia. To make matters worse, the Jugoslav Government,…
are compelled to pursue a policy of forcible assimilation, and, in order
to "Serbise" the Slavs of Serb-Macedonia, must necessarily tend
to disregard those grievances of the local inhabitants which spring from
the violation of their local rights and customs.[38]

Although this authoritative statement of the Foreign
Office acknowledged the existence and the seriousness of the Macedonian
problem, the underlying assumption was that, once the economic and administrative
causes for grievance were allayed, it would be finally resolved. But while
the Foreign Office endeavored to avoid dealing with the national dimension
and implications of the problem until as late as 1930, by the mid-1920s
its position was already being questioned and challenged by Foreign Office
officials in the Balkans, and was becoming untenable. It was difficult
to reconcile the use of three different terms-Slavophone Greeks, Old Serbians
and Bulgarians-when referring to a people who called themselves Makedonci
and spoke Macedonian or dialects of it.[39] The British
could maintain their position only as long as relations between Athens
and Belgrade remained friendly; and a crisis in Greek-Yugoslav relations
in the mid-1920s provoked a heated debate over the national identity of
the Macedonians -Although unwillingly, the Foreign Office was also drawn
into this debate and was forced to consider: "Who are the Macedonian
Slavs?"
Ironically, the crisis in Greek-Yugoslav relations was
sparked by the conclusion of the abortive Greek-Bulgarian Minorities Protocol
of 1924, which "connoted the recognition on the part of Greece that
the Slavophone inhabitants of Greek Macedonia were of Bulgarian race."[40]
This infuriated the Serbs and the Belgrade government broke off its
alliance with Greece on 7 November 1924; [41] it also
launched a press and a diplomatic campaign that Greece protect the rights
of what it called the "Serbian minority" in Aegean Macedonia.[42]
The Yugoslav government clamored for a special agreement with Greece similar
to the abortive protocol between Bulgaria and Greece. "The object
of this move is quite patent," wrote C.H. Bateman of the Foreign Office.
"All that the Serbs want is that the Greeks should recognize a Serbian
minority in Greek Macedonia in the same way as they recognized a Bulgarian
minority in l924."[43] In the end, even though
Greece did not sign such an agreement with Yugoslavia, relations between
these two countries returned to normal; but the debate concerning the national
identity of the Macedonian Slavs that this crisis had instigated in the
Foreign Office continued well into the 1930s.
The debate was not entirely new or confined to Britain.
The national identity of the Macedonians had sparked continuous and heated
controversies before the Balkan Wars and the First World War. However,
the debate assumed far greater relevance and urgency after the peace settlement
because all democratic governments had embraced the principle of national
self-determination. This principle was supposedly the basis for the entire
settlement in east central Europe; and it supposedly bound all governments
of the "New Europe" to respect the national rights of those national
minorities who for one reason or another could not exercise their right
to national self-determination. Hence, to a certain extent the fate of
the peace settlement in this part of Europe hinged on this principle and
it was thus of particular interest to Great Britain, perhaps its chief
architect and defender.
Even before the Greek-Serbian dispute London had received
reports that the causes for the revival of the Macedonian problem were
not solely economic or administrative, but rather that they were primarily
ethnic or national. While noting in its annual report on Bulgaria for 1922,
that "the province known as Macedonia has, of course, no integral
existence," the Chancery of the British Legation at Sofia had emphasized
that as an entity it still existed "in the aspirations of men of Macedonian
birth or origin scattered under the sovereignty of Yugoslavia, Greece and
Bulgaria." It also had added that Macedonia has "clearly defined
geographical boundaries."[44] Colonel Corfe had
written in 1923 that the Macedonians of Aegean Macedonia, and incidentally
in the other two parts, were fearful of state officials and had nothing
to say in their presence:

But in the evenings in their own houses or when we had given the officials
the slip, we encouraged them to speak to us. Then we in-variably heard
the same story as "Bad administration. They want to force us to become
Greeks, in language, in religion, in sentiment, in every way. We have served
in the Greek army and we have fought for them: now they insult us by calling
us 'damned Bulgars"' … To my question "What do you want? an autonomous
Macedonia or a Macedonia under Bulgaria?" the answer was generally
the same: "We want good administration. We are Macedonians, not
Greeks or Bulgars…We want to be left in peace."[45]

The Greek-Serbian crisis, however, forced the Foreign
Office to concentrate its attention, as never before, on the national identity
of the Macedonian Slavs and, indeed, on the question: who are the Macedonians?
On 30 June 1925, DJ. Footman, the British vice consul at Skopje, the administrative
center of Vardar Macedonia, addressed this issue in a lengthy report for
the Foreign Office. He wrote that "the majority of the inhabitants
of Southern Serbia are Orthodox Christian Macedonians, ethnologically slightly
nearer to the Bulgar than to the Serb.." He acknowledged that the
Macedonians were better disposed toward Bulgaria than Serbia because, as
he had pointed out: the Macedonians were "ethnologically" more
akin to the Bulgarians than to the Serbs; because Bulgarian propaganda
in Macedonia in the time of the Turks, largely carried on through the schools,
was widespread and effective; and because Macedonians at the time perceived
Bulgarian culture and prestige to be higher than those of its neighbors.
Moreover, large numbers of Macedonians educated in Bulgarian schools had
sought refuge in Bulgaria before and especially after the partitions of
1913. "There is therefore now a large Macedonian element in Bulgaria,"
continued Footman, "represented in all Government Departments and
occupying high positions in the army and in the civil service...."
He characterized this element as "Serbophobe, [it] mostly desires
the incorporation of Macedonia in Bulgaria, and generally supports the
Makedonska Revolucionara [sic] Organizacija [the IMRO]." However,
he also pointed to the existence of the tendency to seek an independent
Macedonia with Salonica as its capital. "This movement also had adherents
among the Macedonian colony in Bulgaria. It is supported by the parties
of the Left in Bulgaria, and, at least theoretically, by large numbers
of Macedonians."[46]
The Central Department of the Foreign Office went even
further in clarifying the separate identity of the Macedonians. In a confidential
survey and analysis of the entire Macedonian problem it identified the
Macedonians not as Bulgarians, Greeks or Serbs, but rather as Macedonian
Slavs, and, on the basis of "a fairly reliable estimate made in 1912,"
singled them out as by far the largest single ethnic group in Macedonia.[47]
It acknowledged, as did Footman, that these Slavs spoke a language "understood
by both Serbs and Bulgars, but slightly more akin to the Bulgarian tongue
than to the Serbian"; and that after the 1870 establishment of the
Exarchate, Bulgarian propaganda made greater inroads in Macedonia than
the Serbian or Greek. However, it stressed that "While it is probable
that the majority of these Slavs are, or were, pro-Bulgar, it is incorrect
to refer to them as other than Macedo-Slavs. To this extent both the Serb
claim that they are Southern Serbs and the Bulgarian claim that they are
Bulgarians are unjustified."[48]
By declaring that the Macedonian Slavs were neither
Bulgarians nor Serbs, the survey acknowledged implicitly that they were
different from both and hence that they constituted a separate south Slav
element. However, it did not go so far as to recognize them explicitly
as a distinct nationality or nation. It sought to explain this omission
by maintaining, without convincing evidence, that "while amongst the
Slav intellectuals there is violent partisanship, probably the majority
of Slavs … do not care to what nationality they belong."[49]
The real reason for the omission, however, lay elsewhere. In view of the
prevailing acceptance of the principle of national self-determination,
the recognition of the Slav Macedonians as a distinct nationality would
have legitimized the Macedonian claims for autonomy or at least for national
minority rights. This would have connoted the tearing up or at least the
revision of the peace treaties and of the frontiers, neither of which was
acceptable to Britain's clients, Greece and Yugoslavia, or indeed, to Great
Britain itself. "In all the circumstances the present partition of
Macedonia is probably as good a practical arrangement as can be devised,"
declared the Central Department, "and there is no real reason or consideration
of political expediency which could be quoted to necessitate a rearrangement
of the present frontiers."[50]
Indeed, the Foreign Office was contemplating a different
and, as it turned out, an illusory solution to the Macedonian problem.
It accepted as valid the official Greek determination of the low number
of Macedonians in Aegean Macedonia and assumed that with time they would
be assimilated.[51] It also assumed that with time the
Yugoslav hold on Vardar Macedonia would become more secure, that this would
be followed "as a natural consequence" by the "rounding
up of Macedonian agents," and that the Macedonian organization operating
from Bulgaria would "suffer correspondingly through the lack of funds
and general support forthcoming from that district...." And, as organized
Macedonian activity declined,

the prospect of more cordiality between Bulgaria and the Serb-Slovene-Croat
kingdom will become brighter, and pro tonto, the idea of Serb-Bulgar Slav
confederacy will become more feasible. The formation of such a Slav State
in the Balkans will settle the Macedonian question once and for all. Other
considerations arising out of the formation of such a confederacy must
be reserved for the future. [52]

A few months later, on 3 March 1926; C.H. Bateman, a second secretary
in the Foreign Office, issued the official position in a separate "Memorandum
on 'Serbian Minorities' in Greek Macedonia." In this strong statement
he reiterated the main points of the Central Department's memorandum of
26 November 1925: "Most authorities are agreed that by all ethnological
and language tests the Macedonian Slav is more akin to the Bulgar than
to the Serb." Again, without substantiation, he declared that the
deciding factor in the national allegiance of the Macedonian Slavs "is
the national consciousness of the individual who changes his allegiance
according to circumstances… His national allegiance is largely a matter
of the propaganda which is exercised upon him…,"[53]
in effect, under the influence of propaganda, Bulgarian, Greek or Serbian,
the Macedonian Slav would become a loyal Bulgarian, Greek or Serb. Bateman
therefore sided with the Greeks in the Greek-Serbian dispute: "Taking
the broadest interpretation of the Macedonian Slavs, one thing is certain,
namely, that the Serbs have only the flimsiest of rights to intervene at
all on their behalf. The Greeks are correct in contesting this right and
contending that it is a matter that touches the internal administration
of Greece."[54] If, as it appears, Bateman's aim
was to put an end to the Foreign Office debate concerning the Macedonian
national question, he failed. Although the Greek-Serbian dispute came to
nothing, this debate intensified. R.A. Gallop, third secretary of the Legation
at Belgrade, spent a week in April 1926 in Vardar Macedonia; his report
after the tour is most revealing:

The most striking thing to one familiar with North Serbia [Serbia proper],
who has been accustomed to hear Macedonia described as Southern Serbia
and its inhabitants as Serbs, was the complete difference of atmosphere
which was noticeable almost as soon as we had crossed the pre-1913 frontier
some miles south of Vranje. One felt as though one had entered a foreign
country. Officials and officers from North Serbia seemed to feel this too,
and I noticed especially in the cafes and hotels of Skopje that they formed
groups by themselves and mixed little with the Macedo-Slavs. Those of the
latter that I met were equally insistent on calling themselves neither
Serbs nor Bulgars, but Macedonians.... There seemed to be no love lost
for the Bulgars in most places. Their brutality during the war had lost
them the affection even of those who before the Balkan War had been their
friends...[55]

Moreover, in his response to Bateman's memorandum,
Gallop defined more clearly than ever before the central issue in the Greek-Serbian
dispute. He reminded Bateman that the Serbian claim is founded not on the
contention that among the Slavs of Greek Macedonia there are some that
can be picked as Serbs, but on the contention that the population is of
exactly the same stock on both sides of the border. The Serbs see that
to admit that the Macedonians in Greece are Bulgars weakens their case
that the Macedonians in South Serbia are Serbs.
While he agreed with Bateman "that the Macedonian
Slavs used, before the days of propaganda, to call themselves 'Christians'
rather than Serbs or Bulgars," Gallop did not agree "that the
Macedonian Slavs are nearer akin to the Bulgar than to the Serb."
In any case, he questioned the impartiality of so-called "authorities"
and emphasized the actual reality that "nowadays" the Macedonian
Slavs considered and called themselves "Makedonci." [56]
Oliver C. Harvey of the Foreign Office, who visited
both Vardar and Aegean Macedonia, reinforced Gallop's views. Indeed, in
his "Notes" on the fact-finding mission he left no doubt about
the existence of a distinct Macedonian consciousness and identity. In connection
with Vardar Macedonia he reported that "The Slavophone population
of Serb Macedonia definitely regard themselves as distinct from the Serbs.
If asked their nationality they say they are 'Macedonians,' and
they speak the Macedonian dialect. Nor do they identify themselves
with the Bulgars, although the latter seem undoubtedly to be regarded as
nearer relatives than the Serbs."[57] As far as
Aegean Macedonia was concerned, Harvey noted that in its eastern and central
part "the Slavophone population had 'voluntarily' emigrated and their
place had been taken by 500,000 Greek refugees" from Asia Minor. "'Voluntary'
emigration," he observed, "is a euphemism; incoming Greeks were
planted on the Slavophone villagers to such an extent that life was made
unbearable for them and they were forced to emigrate." Such upheaval
did not take place in its western part and large numbers of Slavophones
remained there, in the area around and south of Florina (Lerin). "These
of course constitute the much advertised "Serb minority," he
continued. "But they are no more Serb than the Macedonians of Serbia-they
speak Macedonian, and call themselves Macedonians and sentimentally
look to Bulgaria rather than to Serbia."[58]
Through this internal debate, the Foreign Office appeared
to have reached a virtual consensus that the Macedonian Slavs were neither
Serbs, nor Bulgarians nor Greeks, a de facto acknowledgment that they comprised
a separate southern Slav national group. But they were not given official
recognition as a distinct nationality or nation; as I have already shown,
the Foreign Office hoped to see the Macedonian problem disappear by their
eventual assimilation into the three nations that ruled over them. In the
meantime, during the second half of the 1920s and until its dissolution
in 1934, the IMRO intensified its activities in Bulgaria and armed incursions
into Vardar Macedonia, thereby reminding London of the Macedonian national
question.
Unlike in Greece and Yugoslavia, in Bulgaria the various
aspects of the Macedonian problem were generally argued freely and publicly.
This was only partly due to the traditional Bulgarian paternalism toward
the Macedonians; it also reflected the strength and influence of the organized
Macedonian movement in the Pirin region, in Sofia and in other major urban
centers. Consequently, British diplomats there were more deeply and broadly
versed in all the intricacies of the Macedonian problem than their counterparts
in Athens and Belgrade, and they were more apt to search for alternative
solutions.
Early in 1928 Charles ES. Dodd, the charge d'affaires
at Sofia, assured the Foreign Office that the IMRO "would at once
desist from its sinister activities" "if the Jugoslav Government
would grant educational and religious autonomy to Macedonia." To DJ.
Footman, whose reaction from Skopje had been sought by the Foreign Office,
this read "like pious hope" rather than "a practical proposition."
He did not reject the idea in principle; indeed, he even used the terms
"nationality" and "national minority" when referring
to the Macedonians, and argued that if such autonomy had been introduced
immediately after the war "the results would no doubt have been beneficial."
Now, however, "it would not suffice to wipe out the bitterness felt
against the Serbs"; it would no longer satisfy the entire Macedonian
movement. Instead, he warned, Macedonian activists would interpret it "as
a confession of failure and a sign of weakness on the part of Serbs, to
be exploited to the utmost possible extent." He considered (and the
future proved him right) that "the best chance for real progress in
Macedonia" was "the removal of the Serb predominance in the Jugoslav
state."[59] The Foreign Office dismissed Dodd's
suggestion and showed little appreciation of Footman's pessimistic, but
rather sensitive and measured analysis of the Macedonian problem in Yugoslavia.
"It is quite clear, however," wrote Orme Sargent, a counselor
and a future assistant under secretary of state, "that it would be
impossible to expect the Jugoslav Government to adopt measures which would
recognize the population of Southern Serbia as a political minority."
Inasmuch as he had convinced himself that the discontent in Macedonia was
"due to economic and administrative conditions rather than psychological
or racial issues," he endorsed instead a proposal made by H.W. Kennard,
the minister at Belgrade, to grant financial loans to Yugoslavia to improve
internal conditions "in Southern Serbia and thus help to lessen the
present sullen discontent of the population." Most important, such
expenditure, Sargent concluded,

would not have the appearance of being extorted from the Jugoslav Government
at the point of the Macedonian bayonet, nor would it commit the Jugoslavs
in any way to a recognition of the claim of a separate Macedonian nationality.
Reforms on these lines could therefore be carried out at any time without
loss of face by the Jugoslav Government. [60]

Obviously Sargent was concerned with the sensitivities
and interests of the Yugoslav government and not with the demands of the
Macedonians and consciously sought to minimize "the psychological
and racial issues" as the basis of Macedonian discontent. This did
not go unnoticed at the British Legation at Sofia: in a rather blunt and
less than diplomatic manner, R.A.C. Sperling, the new minister at Sofia,
accused the "Powers," meaning, of course, primarily his own government
and that of France, of always unfairly taking the side of Yugoslavia against
Bulgaria and the Macedonians. Or as he put it, "Jugoslavia continues
flagrantly to violate the provisions of the Minorities Treaty of 1919.
The Powers as well as the League of Nations accept any quibble advanced
by the Jugoslav Government as a pretext for not raising the question of
the Macedonian minority."[61]
The exchange of views provoked by Sperling's "outburst,"
as O. Sargent called it, is most revealing about the Foreign Office's thinking
on the Macedonian national question. Howard Kennard, Sperling's counterpart
at Belgrade, was so taken aback by it that he did not wish to comment on
it officially. In a letter to 0. Sargent, however, he expressed his "private
regrets that Sperling cannot understand that it is not a question of taking
sides one way or the other, but of assisting in preserving the peace in
the Balkans, which is, after all, our only political raison d'etre here."[62]
C.H. Bateman accused Sperling of holding general views "that are not
only erroneous but certainly dangerous …His Majesty's Government has long
since decided that what are nebulously called Macedonian aspirations are
impossible of realization, and that to give way to Macedonian agitation
would be the best way to create upheaval in the Balkans." [63]
Sargent felt that Sperling's "outburst" ought not to go unnoticed;
but instead of an official reprimand he proposed to send him a private
letter.[64] This was approved by R.G. Vansittart, private
secretary to the Prime Minister and assistant under secretary of state
in the Foreign Office, who added that "the next time this sort of
thing happens, he [Sperling] should have it officially."[65]
Sargent's lengthy private letter was polite, but direct. He pointed out
that Serbia was the signatory "of one minorities treaty," that
signed at St. Germain on 20 September 1919. "In your dispatch you
make mention of a Macedonian minority. But what is this minority?"
he asked. "You will find no mention of it in the Jugoslav Minorities
Treaty… He also reiterated the well known view of the Foreign Office that
the grievances which "the population of Southern Serbia complain of
are common to all and are due to the general low level of administrative
ability among the local officials and not to the intentional ill treatment
of any particular race, sect or language." Finally, he rejected Sperling's
suggestion that some satisfaction of the "Macedonian national aspirations"
might lead to a solution of the Macedonian problem. "What are we to
understand by such aspirations?" asked Sargent. "If Macedonian
autonomy is what is aimed at it can be said at once that it is impossible
of realisation." To aim at it would be to play into the hands of Italy
and other revisionist elements, and Britain was determined "to stick
strenuously to the peace terms."[66]
Sperling was not deterred by the hostile reaction of
his superiors. He responded to Sargent with a lengthy letter of his own
in which he reduced the Macedonian problem to its bare essentials by asking
bluntly two questions: "a, Is there such a thing as a Macedonian minority?"
and "b, If there is, is it ill treated by the Serbs?" He then
went on to answer them. "Sounds superfluous," he wrote, "but
you ask 'What is the Macedonian minority?' I can hardly believe you want
me to quote all the authorities from the year one to show you that there
is such a thing as a Macedonian." He referred him specifically to
the earlier reports by Gallop, Harvey and Footman, and stressed that the
Slav inhabitants of Macedonia called themselves neither Serbs nor Bulgarians,
but Macedonians. With regard to the second question, Sperling argued
that it made no difference to the Macedonians "whether these things
were due, as you say, to the general low level of Serbian administrative
ability or to the intentional ill treatment of a particular race. … The
fact remains that their charges stand…"[67]
London was not prepared to listen and, indeed, wished
to put an end to the expression of views that seemed to run counter to
the main tenets of Britain's policies in southeastern Europe. C.H. Bateman
suggested to Sargent that "a short reply would be sufficient to point
to the confusion of thought which appears to exist at our legation at Sofia
on this Macedonian question."[68] Otherwise, his
comments, which were drafted by Sargent into a letter to Sperling, reveal
a characteristic British slighting of nationalism and national movements
among the so-called "small" and "young" peoples in
eastern Europe. He argued that just because the Slavs of Macedonia called
themselves Macedonians, "there was no reason why We or you should
consent to give them a name which coincides with a piece of territory…
which has not for a thousand years been an autonomous entity in any sense…"[69]
However, he could not come up with another, more acceptable name for them,
except perhaps "Macedo-Slavs," which was in effect the same thing.[70]
Such intervention and argumeilts do not seem to have
been sufficient to silence the legation at Sofia. At any rate, R.A.C. Sperling
left Sofia shortly after,[71] and his successor-, Sidney
P.P. Waterlow, held views on the Macedonian problem that were, if anything,
even more revisionist. He expressed them most cogently in a long, thoughtful
and courteous letter to R.G. Vansittart,[72] who had
in the meantime become permanent under secretary of state for foreign affairs.
He did not believe, as the Foreign Office did, that the Macedonian problem
would simply disappear when the militant revolutionaries had been destroyed
in Bulgaria and when Yugoslavia had provided the Macedonians with good
administration and a civilized minority regime. Unlike Nevile Henderson,
Kennard's successor as minister at Belgrade, he could not see how any amount
of good administration, even if it would improve the atmosphere and facilitate
the suppression of the IMRO, could be an ultimate solution. He argued that
only genuine home rule-freedom to manage local affairs, churches, schools,
etc.-could do that, but even here he had doubts. In any case, he seemed
convinced that Belgrade was not capable of giving its Macedonian subjects
anything like real local autonomy or, at least, not so long as the Macedonians
considered themselves Macedonian.

It is this that dictates the present policy of intense Serbification.
But it is this that makes it impossible to introduce a genuine minority
regime until there is no minority to give the regime to, and it is just
this that Bulgaria, with her Macedonian exiles (the most stubborn and intelligent
people in the Balkans) and her indigenous Macedonian population, can never
wholeheartedly accept …[73]

Thus, even if the revolutionaries were destroyed
and Serbian Macedonia was ruled with "kindly wisdom," the Macedonian
question would most likely remain unresolved, an apple of discord, a stumbling
block to stability in the Balkans, etc. In Waterlow's search for a solution
"that might bring real peace at long last," he seriously considered
the idea, which seemed entirely logical to him but at the same time not
altogether practical from the perspective of British foreign policy, of
an autonomous united Macedonia. "I do not share the view of the department
that Macedonia never having been a geographical or racial entity, the idea
[an autonomous united Macedonia] is inherently absurd;" he wrote,
"that is an exaggeration, inherited, I fancy, from the predominance
of Serb views at the Peace Conference." He believed that, united and
independent, the Macedonians "might play the part which God seems
to have assigned to them in the Balkans, but which man has thwarted-that,
namely, of acting as a link between their Serb and Bulgar brothers, instead
of being a permanent cause of division." [74] He
did not really expect a positive reaction to this idea from the Foreign
Office; yet, as he concluded, "one's mind keeps flying back in this
direction, as one goes over the problem day after day, only to find Alps
upon Alps of hopelessness arise."[75] But when
John Balfour at the Foreign Office read Waterlow's report, he did not consider
this a logical idea and maintained that Britain "must continue to
concentrate [on the peace treaties] in the forlorn hope that they will
pierce a Simplon Tunnel through the Alps of despair."[76]
On the basis of this lengthy debate, which involved
those in the Foreign Office and service most concerned with the Macedonian
question, the Central Department drafted a new, updated memorandum on the
Macedonian question in 1929.[77] Parts of the first
version were revised shortly thereafter as a result of last minute critical
comments and objections voiced by Waterlow. The final draft of this lengthy
and valuable document, dated 2 July 1930, presented the official British
interpretation of the history of the Macedonian question since the 1860s,
as well as an analysis of the contemporary political problem.[78]
It acknowledged once again that the Slav inhabitants of Macedonia, the
Macedo-Slavs or Macedonians, were neither Serbs nor Bulgarians, and thus
implicitly recognized their separate and distinct identity. It also admitted
the existence in Yugoslav Macedonia of "a uniquely dangerous minority
problem, which is aggravated by the fact that the Macedonians are the most
stubborn and hard-headed people in the Balkans." [79]
It was therefore deeply concerned that the League of Nations could be dragged
into the Macedonian problem, first of all, because it was a threat to international
peace and, secondly and more importantly, because the Yugoslav minorities
treaty, concluded at St. Germain in 1919, applied "to all territories
acquired by Serbia as a result of the Balkan wars, and the enforcement
of which is entrusted to the League Council."[80]
Great Britain, however, could not allow the consideration of the Macedonian
question in Yugoslavia by the League of Nations, the body that was specifically
delegated to deal with and arbitrate national problems, conflicts and grievances,
for it would "inevitably involve the airing of the whole Macedonian
problem at Geneva and its discussion could hardly fail to precipitate a
crisis which the League Council might find it very difficult to control."[81]
London feared that League of Nations consideration of the Macedonian problem
in Yugoslavia would amount to a de facto recognition of the Macedonian
nationality. This would in turn legitimize to a certain extent the Macedonian
demands for a united and independent Macedonia, thus challenging the existing
status quo in the Balkans. The Memorandum made this quite clear: "Indeed,
once the existence of a Macedonian nationality is even allowed to be presumed
there is a danger that the entire Peace Settlement will be jeopardized
by the calling into question, not merely of the frontiers between Jugoslavia
and Bulgaria, but also of those between Jugoslavia and Greece and between
Jugoslavia and Albania" [82] It strongly recommended
that "this Balkan cancer" be treated

"not by drastic surgical excision (e.g. plebiscite resulting in
a change of frontiers....)" but rather "by the use of the healing
properties of time and by the use of radium treatment of persuasive diplomacy,
which while basing itself on the territorial status quo, shall endeavor
gradually to eradicate the open sore that has for so long poisoned the
relations of the Balkan states."[83]

The analysis and the recommendations of this memorandum
remained the official British position on the Macedonian question virtually
until the outbreak of World War II.
The Foreign Office interpreted the subsequent "degeneration"
of the IMRO of Ivan Mihailov and, after the military coup in Sofia in 1934,
the decline and cessation of its terrorist activities, as signs of the
gradual eradication of "this Balkan cancer." In actual fact,
this view represented a serious misreading, indeed, a rather crude misunderstanding
of the transformation of Macedonian nationalism at the time. The IMRO,
which had been divided between a right and a left wing from its very inception,
finally split in 1924-1925. The left formed its own separate organization,
the IMRO (United) and joined the Balkan Communist Federation and the Comintern.
Unlike the right, it had a clearly defined social, economic and particularly
national program; unlike the terrorist campaign of the right, it enhanced
the cause of both nationalism and communism in Macedonia through underground
work. By the early 1930s it had attracted a large following and was challenging
Mihailov's IMRO for leadership. Waterlow informed the Foreign Office of
the split and the growing strength of the left in his report on the proceedings
of the Tenth Congress of the Macedonian Brotherhoods in Bulgaria, the legal
organization of Mihailov's IMRO, held in Sofia on 24-27january 1932.

The opposite view [the left], which has lately grown within the movement,
which was suppressed at the congress, but which was clearly set out in
the communist press, is that Mihailoff has forsaken the ideal of the Macedonian
movement, that he does not fight for the liberation of Macedonia and that
he has become the tool of the Fascist regime in Bulgaria, which uses the
Macedonian organization for the sole purpose of maintaining its dictatorship
… The Macedonian movement should again become national and independent,
it should throw off the tutelage of the Bulgarian Government, which supports
it only for its own ends, and it should fight for a genuinely independent
Macedonia as part of a Balkan Federation under Soviet protection.[84]

The growth of the left undermined the support of
the IMRO of Mihailov and forced the latter, for reasons of self-preservation,
to free itself from the tutelage of the Bulgarian government and to identify
itself with a Macedonian national program clearly calling for "the
unification of Macedonian territories held by Yugoslavia, Greece and Bulgaria,
into an independent political entity within its natural geographical frontiers."[85]
But it is safe to assume that this reorientation of the IMRO contributed
to its suppression in 1934: by the second half of the 1930s most Bulgarians
had become convinced "that the Macedonians have been more trouble
in Bulgaria than they were worth and merely gave the country a bad name
abroad without helping the national [Bulgarian] cause...."[86]
IMRO's suppression, in turn, helped to enhance the role of the Macedonian
left, whose nationalist activities had previously been hampered by the
IMRO and whose many activists had fallen victims of the mihailovist terror.
As Bentinck, the new minister at Sofia, pointed out:

Since the coup d'etat last year, however, the Macedonian communists
became much more active, especially in Sofia and Bulgarian Macedonia. I
am told the intention was to detach the three portions of Macedonia belonging
to Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria, and to unite them into a Soviet Republic
- - - At the same time the communist parties in Bulgaria, Jugoslavia and
Greece were ordered by Moscow to support the Macedonian communists…[87]

Thus, contrary to the hopes and expectations of the
Foreign Office, neither the dissolution of the terrorist IMRO nor "the
healing properties of time" resolved the Macedonian problem or caused
it to disappear. Macedonian nationalism was forced underground and into
the embrace of international communism, where it continued to grow. As
Simeon Radev, a prominent Bulgarophile Macedonian and a well known retired
Bulgarian diplomat, pointed out to Waterlow, "no solution of the [Macedonian]
problem could be expected by the mere aflux of time. There was no prospect
whatever of the population acquiescing in the policy of Serbianisation
pursued by Belgrade...." He also emphasized "that the Macedonian
sense of nationality was not a sense of Bulgarian nationality. It took
the shape, especially with the younger generation, of an aspiration for
autonomy." [88] On a private visit to Istanbul
in September 1933, E. Venizelos, the great Greek statesman, expressed similar
sentiments to Sir George Clerk, the British ambassador: Venizelos had always
counseled

that the Jugoslav Government should make a serious effort to content
the Slav Macedonian minority... M. Venizelos maintained that these people,
of which Greece has a small share...., are not pure Bulgarians, but something
between Bulgarian and Serbian, and he had, he said, always been ready to
give them Slav Macedonian schools and other reasonable privileges.[89]

Furthermore, as Radev had also argued, a driving
force behind the Macedonian movement at this time was the fundamental belief
that anything, however improbable, might occur in a world of flux. And
central to this belief was "a desire for a union of all Macedonians
in an autonomous state..." [90] As the outbreak
of the Second World War approached the growing challenges to the status
quo in Europe intensified this belief and desire in the second half of
the 1930s.[91] In addition to the USSR or, rather, the
communist movement, which already enjoyed widespread support among the
Macedonians, by the end of the decade both Germany and Italy actively advocated
schemes for "the liberation of Macedonia" with which "they
are trying to attract Macedonians …"[92]
While the Foreign Office either minimized or was ignorant
of the strength of Macedonian nationalism on the left, it was not ready
to overlook the spread of German and Italian influence in the area. And
it was this more than anything else, that brought about a renewed British
interest in the Macedonians and the beginning of a British reappraisal
of the Macedonian national problem. After the fall of France in summer
1940, G.W. Rendel, the minister at Sofia, warned of the increased Soviet,
German and Italian activities in Macedonia and concluded that "Presumably'
however the Macedonians would accept any 'autonomous' Macedonian state
which a great power succeeds in establishing."[93]
He analyzed the aims of the Macedonians in greater detail in a private
letter to P.B.B. Nichols of the Foreign Office written ten days later:

My impression is that there is now a fairly large section of the Macedonians
who look to Russia for their salvation. … I think the pro -Russian groups
probably hope for the eventual creation of an autonomous Macedonian Soviet
Republic as one of a chain of South Slav Soviet states running from the
Black Sea to the Adriatic and to the German and Italian frontiers. On the
other hand, there are certainly a number of Macedonians who are short sighted
enough to be ready to intrigue with Germany and Italy…The Macedonians are
notoriously difficult, and have many of the characteristics of the Irish,
and my impression is that they are happiest in opposition to any existing
regime...[94]

Early in 1941 the vice consul at Skopje provided
the Foreign Office with an even more extensive and perceptive analysis
of the current state of the Macedonian problem. He claimed that the vast
majority of the Macedonians belonged to the national movement; indeed,
he estimated "that 90 percent of all Slav Macedonians were autonomists
in one sense or another...." Because the movement was wrapped in secrecy,
however, it was extremely difficult to gauge the relative strength of its
various currents, except that it could be assumed that IMRO had lost ground
since it was banned in Bulgaria and its leaders exiled. While the vice
consul acknowledged the close relationship between communism and "autonomism"
or nationalism in Macedonia, he downplayed the frequently expressed contention
that the communists used the Macedonian movement for their own ends. Instead,
he argued that since virtually every Macedonian was an autonomist, it was
almost certain "that the Communists and autonomists are the same people...";
and, in any case, that Macedonian communists were not doctrinaire and were
"regarded by other Balkan communists as weaker brethren...."
"My own opinion," wrote Thomas, "is that they are autonomists
in the first place and Communists only in the second."[95]
He concluded his lengthy report by stressing what by then should have been
obvious: the Macedonian problem was "a real one" and "an
acute one" and that it "has in no way been artificially created
by interested propaganda." He considered change unavoidable and felt
that it was "in the interest of Jugoslavia to satisfy the aspirations
of Macedonia." He was equally convinced, however, that it was highly
improbable, "in view of the instinctive dislike of the Serbs engendered
by twenty years of Serbian rule, that anything short of autonomy would
be acceptable.'' [96]
Rendel's and Thomas's appraisals of the Macedonian situation
were not radically different from many produced by their predecessors stationed
in the Balkans. However, with the world once more at war, the Foreign Office
now accorded them more serious consideration and appeared, although grudgingly,
to accept them. It seemed to accept the fact that Britain's hitherto refusal
to officially recognize the existence of a Macedonian nationality, a policy
that it had shaped and defended for over twenty years, might no longer
prove tenable and most likely would not survive the war. In a highly revealing,
indeed almost prophetic, comment on Thomas's report, Reginald J. Bowker
of the Foreign Office conceded this when he wrote: "To the layman
the only possible solution of the Macedonian problem would seem to be in
giving the Macedonians some sort of autonomy within Jugoslavia. Possibly
after the war the Jugoslavs may be willing to consider this. But such a
measure would, no doubt, incur the risk of whetting the appetite of the
Macedonians for complete independence."[97]
The lack of official recognition or legitimacy internationally
and in the three Balkan states obviously had hindered the normal and natural
development of Macedonian identity. However, it could not destroy it. Macedonianism
in its various manifestations-particularism, patriotism, nationalism-was
too deeply entrenched among the Macedonian people and among the small,
but vibrant and dynamic intelligentsia, especially on the political left.
During World War II, which began for the Balkans in late 1940 and early
1941, Macedonians in all three parts of their divided land joined resistance
movements in large numbers and fought for national unification and liberation.[98]
They did not achieve national unification; however, the Macedonians in
Vardar or Yugoslav Macedonia won not only national recognition but also
legal equality with the other nations of the new, communistled, federal
Yugoslavia.

54. Ibid., 4.55. FO371/11405, Kennard (Belgrade)
to A. Chamberlain, 21 April 1926, Enclosure, R.A. Gallop, "Conditions
in Macedonia," 19 April 1926,1. 56. "I should like to know
the names of any authorities who are impartial," wrote Gallop. "Certainly
none of the Serbian, Bulgarian, Russian, British or German ever are!"
(FO371/11337, Enclosure, 23 April 1926). 57. FO371/11245, 2. 58. Ibid., p.3. 59. Footman argued that "such
local autonomy would have greater chance of success were it to be introduced
by some future government in which Croats and Slovenes held the preponderating
position. There is throughout Macedonia a sullen bitterness against the
Serbs..." (FO371/12856, Footman [Skopje] to Kennard, 4 February 1928
in Kennard [Belgrade] to Chamberlain, 18 February 1928). 60. Ibid., Kennard (Belgrade)
to Sargent, 16 February 1928, Minute, 24 February 1928; see also Sargent
(London) to Kennard, 20 February 1928. 61. Ibid., Sperling (Sofia) to
Cushendun, 13 September 1928. 62. Ibid., Kennard (Belgrade)
to Sargent, 20 September 1928. 63. Ibid., C.H. Bateman, Minute,
20 September 1928. 64. Ibid., 0. Sargent, Minute,
28 September 1928. 65. Ibid., R.G. Vansittart, Minute,
29 September 1928. Robert Gilbert Vansittart was knighted in 1929 and created
a baron in 1941 66. Ibid., Sargent (London) to
Sperling, 10 October 1928 67. Ibid., Sperling (Sofia) to
Sargent, 10 October 1928. 68. Ibid., C.H. Bateman, Minute,
18 October 1928. 69. Ibid., Sargent (London) to
Sperling, 22 October 1928 70. "The fact was of course
that the framers of the Minorities Treaty hesitated to mention them under
any specific name," wrote Bateman. "The most they could be called
is Macedo-Slavs" (ibid., C.H. Bateman, Minute, 18 October 1928). 71. Great Britain, Foreign Office,
The Foreign Office List and Diplomatic and Consular Year Book for 1935
(London, 1935), 416. 72. FO371/14316, Waterlow (Sofia)
to Vansittart, 21 May 1930. 73. Ibid., 7. 74. Ibid., 8-9. 75. Ibid., 9. 76. Ibid., J. Balfour, Minute,
2 June 1930. 77. FO371/13573, Central Department,
Memorandum, "The Macedonian Question and Komitaji Activity,"
6 December 1929, 9 pp. 78. FO371/14317, Central Department,
Memorandum, "The Origins of the Macedonian Revolutionary Organization
and Its History Since the Great War," 1 July 1930,16 pp. 79. Ibid., 9. 80. Ibid., 14. 81. Ibid., 15. 82. Ibid. 83. Ibid., 16. 84. FO371/57473, Waterlow (Sofia) to Simon, 5 February
1932. According to the assistant to the Bishop of Nevrokop, one of the
major centers of Pirin Macedonia, "The Revolutionary Organization
itself was split by a growing Communist current, … aiming at the liberation
of Macedonia by the bolshevisation of the Balkans, while the local population
was in its turn divided, about half being for the organization and half
against, and the hostile half being largely Communist in feeling (FO371/15896,
Waterlow [Sofia] to Simon, 22 June 1932; see also FO371/19486, Bentinck
[Sofia] to Hoare, 16 September 1935 and 26 September 1935). On the left
of the Macedonian movement see also the works cited in note 27. 85. FO371/16650, Waterlow (Sofia)
to Simon, 27 February 1933. 86. FO371/24880, Rendel (Sofia)
to Nichols, 25 August 1940. 87. FO371/19486. Bentinck
(Sofia) to Hoare, 26 September 1935. 88. FO371/16651, Waterlow (Sofia)
to Simon, 21 July 1933. 89. FO371/16775, Clerk (Constaninople)
to Simon, ^ October 1933. 90. FO371/16651 91. On the aims of Macedonian
nationalism on the left in the 1930s, see Biblioteka "Makedonsko zname,"
no.1, Ideite i zadachite na Makedonskoto progresivno dvizenje
v Bulgaria (Sofia, 1933); Ristovski, Makedonskiot narod i
Makedonskata Nacija, 2: 481-560; and my forthcoming study "Macedonianism
and Macedonian Nationalism on the Left." 92. FO371/24880, Rendel (Sofia)to
F.O., 15 August 1940. 93. Ibid. 94. FO371/24880, Rendel (Sofia)
to Nichols, 25 August 1940. George L. Clutton of the Foreign Office described
the Macedonians as "discontented peasants who are anti-Jugoslav, anti-Greek,
anti-Bulgarian, anti-German, and anti everything except possibly anti-Russian"
(FO371/24880, Campbell [Belgrade] to F.O., 4 September 1940, G.L. Clutton,
Minute, 10 September 1940). 95. FO371/29785, Campbell (Belgrade) to Halifax, 6 January
1941, Enclosure, "Report on the General Situation in Southern Serbia
by Mr. Thomas, British Vice-Consul at Skoplje." 96. Ibid.. 97. Ibid., Reginald J. Bowker,
Minute, l6 January 1941. 98. On the aims of Macedonian
nationalism during the Second World War, see the informative and illuminating
discussions by Kiril Miljovski, "Motivite na revolucijata 1941-1944
godina vo Makedonija," Istorija (Skopje) 10, no.1 (1974): 19ff;
and by Cvetko Uzunovski, "Vostanieto vo 1941 vo Makedonija,"
Istorija, 10, no.2 (1974): 103 if.